极权政治研究:从西方到东方的视界转换——魏特夫《东方专制主义》的扩展解读

第二次世界大战催生了"西方的"极权主义研究.魏特夫的<东方专制主义>将极权主义研究的视野从西方转移到东方.本文对魏特夫东方专制主义结构形态的分析进行了重述,对他论述的东方专制主义转型的契机与复辟的危险做了分析.在此基础上,既以批评的眼光审视了魏特夫东方专制主义的"冷战"思维,同时也肯定了他的研究所具有的揭橥东方古典社会政治特质的价值,并指出人类重视自由价值与警惕专制政治的高度相关性与现实针对性.     

The Sound of Mute Vowels in Auditory Word-Stem Completion

Some studies have argued that orthography can influence speakers when they perform oral language tasks. Words containing a mute vowel provide well-suited stimuli to investigate this phenomenon because mute vowels, such as the second <e> in <vegetable>, are present orthographically but absent phonetically. Using an auditory word-stem completion task, we tested whether subjects were influenced by the presence of mute vowels. We ran experiments in two languages which contain numerous mute-vowel words: Tigrinya, which uses a syllabic/moraic writing system, and French, which uses an alphabetic writing system. We argue that Tigrinya and French speakers based their completion on the sound form of words, rather than the written one. We suggest that the presence of mute vowels at the underlying phonological level, rather than their orthographic representation, influences speakers in the word-stem completion task. Some effects previously attributed to orthography may instead be attributable to underlying phonological representations.     

Building on the Data and Adding to the Discussion: The Experiences and Outcomes of Students with Emotional Disturbance

The purpose of this article is to add to the discussion regarding identification of students with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD). In addition, the article discusses services that students with EBD receive and their outcomes. The article reviews data from several national longitudinal studies to present a comprehensive picture of issues pertinent to this group of students. Unfortunately, outcomes for these students continue to be dismal. The article concludes with a discussion of areas for further consideration and attention.     

Young infants' actions reveal their developing knowledge of support variables: converging evidence for violation-of-expectation findings

Violation-of-expectation (VOE) tasks have revealed substantial developments in young infants' knowledge about support events: by 5.5 months, infants expect an object to fall when released against but not on a surface; and by 6.5 months, infants expect an object to fall when released with 15% but not 100% of its bottom on a surface. Here we investigated whether action tasks would reveal the same developmental pattern. Consistent with VOE reports, 5.5- and 6.5-month-old infants were more likely to reach for a toy that rested on as opposed to against a surface; and 6.5- but not 5.5-month-olds were more likely to reach for a toy with 100% as opposed to 15% of its bottom on a surface. Infants at each age thus used their support knowledge to determine whether the toys were likely to be retrievable or to be attached to adjacent surfaces and hence irretrievable. These and control findings extend recent evidence that developmental patterns observed in VOE tasks also hold in action tasks, and as such provide further support for the view that VOE and action tasks tap the same physical knowledge.     

Can infants be "taught" to attend to a new physical variable in an event category? The case of height in covering events

As they observe or produce events, infants identify variables that help them predict outcomes in each category of events. How do infants identify a new variable? An explanation-based learning (EBL) account suggests three essential steps: (1) observing contrastive outcomes relevant to the variable; (2) discovering the conditions associated with these outcomes; and (3) generating an explanation for the condition-outcome regularity discovered. In Experiments 1-3, 9-month-old infants watched events designed to "teach" them the variable height in covering events. After watching these events, designed in accord with the EBL account, the infants detected a height violation in a covering event, three months earlier than they ordinarily would have. In Experiments 4-6, the "teaching" events were modified to remove one of the EBL steps, and the infants no longer detected the height violation. The present findings thus support the EBL account and help specify the processes by which infants acquire their physical knowledge.     

Capacity limits of information processing in the brain

Despite the impressive complexity and processing power of the human brain, it is severely capacity limited. Behavioral research has highlighted three major bottlenecks of information processing that can cripple our ability to consciously perceive, hold in mind, and act upon the visual world, illustrated by the attentional blink (AB), visual short-term memory (VSTM), and psychological refractory period (PRP) phenomena, respectively. A review of the neurobiological literature suggests that the capacity limit of VSTM storage is primarily localized to the posterior parietal and occipital cortex, whereas the AB and PRP are associated with partly overlapping fronto-parietal networks. The convergence of these two networks in the lateral frontal cortex points to this brain region as a putative neural locus of a common processing bottleneck for perception and action.     

Can infants attribute to an agent a disposition to perform a particular action?

The present research investigated whether 13.5-month-old infants would attribute to an actor a disposition to perform a recurring action, and would then use this information to predict which of two new objects-one that could be used to perform the action and one that could not-the actor would grasp next. During familiarization, the infants watched an actor slide various objects forward and backward on an apparatus floor. During test, the infants saw two new identical objects placed side by side: one stood inside a short frame that left little room for sliding; the other stood inside a longer frame that left ample room for sliding. The infants who saw the actor grasp the object inside the short frame looked reliably longer than those who saw the actor grasp the object inside the long frame. This and control results from a lifting condition provide evidence that by 13.5 months, infants can attribute to an actor a disposition to perform a particular action.     

A longitudinal study of the relationship of maternal autonomy support to children's adjustment and achievement in school

A longitudinal study examined the relations of maternal autonomy support to children's school adjustment. Autonomy support and other parenting dimensions were measured when children were 5 years old. School measures were teacher-rated academic and social adjustment and achievement in reading and math in grade 3. Regression analyses controlling for age 5 family and child factors (e.g., socioeconomic status [SES], kindergarten adjustment, IQ) revealed that autonomy support was positively related to grade 3 adjustment (social and academic) and reading achievement. Maternal emphasis on school performance was positively related to achievement measures but negatively related to social adjustment. Maternal use of rewards and praise was unrelated to grade 3 school measures. Finally, supplemental analyses revealed that autonomy support was associated with greater consistency in children's adjustment across social and academic domains as well as higher overall adjustment. These results highlight the developmental significance of parental autonomy support in early childhood.